This is all very interesting and how about all the other combinations of ripe color and chlorophyll levels?
If you look at the peppers varieties out there it's apparent that some start out very light green (such as some bhut strains) while others are quite darker than average when unripe. If varieties were divided into those with high, medium and low chlorophyll levels - dark green, green and light green (probably oversimplified) – and then that variation was combined with the range of ripe colors from red, orange, and yellow to white (plus in-between shades like yellow-orange) this mixing could create many shades of brown and other colors.
But what do these look like and what are they called?
The reds + chlorophyll probably goes like this :
- Brown (dark) – dark green retained over red as said above by The Kraken.
- Chocolate/light brown – green over red.
- Caramel – light green over red. The immature pods of caramel Morugas and bhuts are very pale.
- Capuchino – is this a different name for caramel? Or is it something else? There are other coffee-related names out there too.
Where do burgundy/wine colors fall? I recall that at least one burgundy strain could not be fixed because the underlying color (red-orange?) was present only when there was a certain mix of genes (heterozygous alleles). But it looks like some similarly colored peppers are now recognized strains.
What about orange + chlorophyll?
- Pretty sure some peppers termed “bronze” go here
How about yellow + chlorophyll?
- Mustard must be one, but there are several shades of yellowish peppers (orange-yellow, lemon, etc.)
Chlorophyll over white?
- This is easy - green.
To complicate things more you could add in peppers that change colors as they ripen.
How about adding purple to the mix?
Anyway, chlorophyll retention is fascinating and full of potential for fantastic phenotypes.
- Tick